Sunday, January 21, 2018

The Hawaii missile scare

I have
visited Hawaii three times up till now. The first time it was a short one day
visit with my parents, the second time, I went with my family to Honolulu and
the third time to Maui and the big Island. Although I don’t know how to swim (I
know how to drown though) it is a beautiful place to visit and if it were up to
me I would retire there too. It is expensive as everybody knows that but it is
so tranquil and so diverse in nature that you can live there forever. So it was
really distressing that an employee (who has now been reportedly reassigned)
send out an incoming ballistic missile alert by mistake and got corrected
reportedly 38 minutes later sending panic residents and tourists to seek
shelter and started saying goodbyes to their loved ones. I don’t know how it
would feel if you find out that your life will be finished in 38 minutes but it
is scary as hell to find out like this unprepared.

The main
point is why nobody in the State government bothered to check if the alert was
correct or not. I believe it is gross negligence and a complete review should
done to ascertain the weakness of the system and to make sure it does not
happen, which they have already promised. Although I will sure vacation it
there as it is still a beautiful and magical place to visit but now in addition
to enjoying the vacation and in light of the tension between North Korea and
the United States and with North Korea threatening to attack the United States
and having Hawaii only 4600 miles from North Korea, a ballistic missile will
take 30 minutes or so to reach Hawaii GOD FORBID and in one sense it is good to
have this false drill but people intending to vacation here will have to be
prepared in case something like this happens. Note: Now you can submit your posts at infinipinions@gmail.com to be uploaded in this blog